1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display panel. More particularly, the present invention relates to a display panel capable of simplifying process steps.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) includes an LCD panel to display an image and a backlight assembly to provide light to the LCD panel.
The LCD panel includes an array substrate, a color filter substrate which faces the array substrate and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the array substrate and the color filter substrate. The array substrate includes a plurality of pixels that serve as basic elements used to represent an image. Each pixel includes a thin film transistor (“TFT”) and a pixel electrode. The TFT switches a pixel voltage applied to the liquid crystal layer. The pixel electrode is electrically connected to a drain electrode of the TFT, and faces a common electrode which is formed on a color filter substrate. The liquid crystal layer is interposed between the pixel electrode and the common electrode. Meanwhile, a color filter layer formed on the color filter substrate includes a plurality of color pixels, and each color pixel is provided to correspond to each pixel in order to display an image.
The LCD is fabricated in a slimmer size as compared to a cathode ray tube display, but the LCD has a narrower viewing angle.
Therefore, in order to improve the narrow viewing angle of the LCD, a patterned vertical alignment (“PVA”) mode LCD panel and a super-patterned vertical alignment (“SPVA”) mode LCD panel, which each have a relatively wider viewing angle characteristics, have been recently developed. In the PVA and SPVA mode LCD panels, a pixel electrode and a common electrode are patterned to thereby form a plurality of domains in one pixel. In addition, the liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer are aligned differently according to each domain.
Since the PVA and SPVA mode LCD panels are provided with openings formed through the common electrode in order to define the domains, a mask used to pattern the common electrode is required. For this reason, a number of process steps and a number of masks increase, thereby reducing a productivity and increasing manufacturing costs thereof.